


Double The Devil Within

by TheAllShipperKAZ2Y5



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner, the maze runner
Genre: AU, Alternate Canon, Angst, Best Friends, Big Brother!Minho, Big Brother!Newt, Books, Bromance, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotional Sex, Family Feels, Feels, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gally Is Okay, Glader Slang, Horse!Newt, Hurt, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Labrador!Minho, M/M, Major Character(s), Maybe - Freeform, Mild Painplay, Minho Ships It, Minho is awesome, Multi, Newmas - Freeform, No Teresa ever, Pain, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Protective Minho, Protective Newt, Realization, Revelation, Shock, Sight AU, Sleepy Boys, Sleepy Cuddles, Sleepy Kisses, Sleepy Thomas, Sort of Book Canon, Sort of Movie Canon, Thomas Finds Out, Thomas is The Last Glader, WICKED is good, Wolf!Thomas, ish, newtmas - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:36:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2592005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAllShipperKAZ2Y5/pseuds/TheAllShipperKAZ2Y5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His body was a cage. His mind was The Maze and his heart was The Glade.<br/>He had to solve himself before he could try to solve anything else. And even the place of safety was a place of danger. A place of death and destruction.<br/>He was the boy with two hearts. Two souls.<br/>He was not alone.<br/>Not even in his own body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double The Devil Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're not alone. Not in heart, in mind, or in soul.

The moment he was running he knew it was a mistake. Even as he'd shoved through them he'd noticed it. They were caged in. High grey stone boxing them like caged rats every way the head turned, his heart racing faster than his legs. He could hear their jeers, their shouts and whoops of sick delight like wolves chasing an injured stag. They were letting him run because he had nowhere to go. Even if he did reach the walls, there was no way through them. He didn't know anything. He had no name, he had no face, only something calling at him, screaming at him to go. To get away. To  _run._

His heart staggered over itself and a strange thrum went through his body, shooting through him like a chill but it was hot, a pulse of energy and there was a streak of gold in his vision and then it was as though there was something running  _with_ him, something racing him, shadowing him,  _within_ him and it was calling to him, urging him on and saying _I'm here, I'm with you_  and there was a sense of calm with it, as though it knew what it needed to do and he longed for it but he was scared of it. It was pulsing through him like his heartbeat now, speeding up as though it was leading to something.

The cheers had died down slightly, as though he was either no longer entertaining or he was so entertaining he'd rendered them soundless and then suddenly he  _felt it._

It was like another heartbeat, beating in time with his own and then becoming one. It shocked through him like a tidal wave, a sudden hard pulse and then instead of his footsteps matching his heartbeat they were suddenly more than his heartbeat, a flying four-sequence that thundered in his ears and his breath was one big sound-filling exhale, like a gust of wind and it was as though he'd pitched forwards, the world suddenly dropping and he thought he'd tripped for a moment until the world shot upwards again, two-part thumps thundering in his ears and then the world was falling, rolling and then there was green and it  _hurt._

He flipped uncontrollably, rolling and twisting and bending at awkward angles until suddenly he stopped, twisting over himself like a fish out of water and thumping back to the ground and the cheers were loud again now, huge whooping cat calls and cries of delighted amusement as he lifted his head from the grass, his eyes wild and his heart fighting his ribs like a caged animal desperate to escape and he couldn't  _think straight_ because he'd been so close, he was running, he was free in a way and now he was laying in the dirt was grass on his tongue and mud on his cheeks.

There was a thunder behind him that rumbled in the ground under his body, like a herd of wild horses only they were still jeering, baying at him like hounds looking for blood and he was frozen, staring across the grassy field that trickled off into a thick forest that climbed at the walls like dying men desperate to escape and all he could hear was his own breath, his own heartbeat as he stared. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. But his body was paralysed, he was clawing at his own organs, his bones a cage around himself and even when he knew the boys were upon him he couldn't move. 

There were hands everywhere on him, harsh and tight and yanking him like rabid wolves tearing at prey to his feet and he didn't fight them, but he didn't go with them either, gaze fixed only on one thing.

There was a gap.

There was a gap in the wall and as the boys from earlier ripped him to his feet he twisted his neck, looked around and there was one, two, three, four. Four gaps in the walls. He'd been so close to freedom and he'd missed it. Missed his chance. There was  _a gap in the wall_ and he'd  _missed it._ The voices were harsh and cold, saying things that made no sense like "Shucking slinthead is bloody fast though" and "Thought this Greenie was gonna be a Runner till he ate dirt" and he listened until they blurred into one distorted rumble of odd sounds, his vision darkening and clearing as his body heaved in their grip and he had no idea how long he was dragged, lost track of time as the sky moved above him and it was...

It wasn't peaceful, but it was normal. As though he wasn't moving and it was simply the world turning around him. 

And then there was scraping sounds like metal across stone and laugher and then they jolted him, turned and moved him in their hold like he was a doll for them to play with and then they pitched him forwards, watched him scramble as they threw him down, body hitting hard stone, chest bouncing and head tipping backwards to avoid eating dirt for a second time since he left the first cage and he twisted surprisingly fast but too late still, could only watch as the pairs of feet turned away, taking the sick laughter with them. 

For a long time he sat, feeling his body go stiff and sore from the sudden action and an even more sudden confinement, and he tried to think. He knew things, that he didn't know how he knew. Things like he had parents. He was a he. This was a cage. They were people. Things that everyone ought to know, except for one thing.

He had no memory of himself. His life. What happened before he opened his eyes to find the world spinning and tearing around him, before the cage opened to reveal sets of bloodthirsty, amused eyes looking down at him,

He had no name. He had no life. He had no memory. 

He had no idea how long he was stuck there, curled up on himself with his arms out to the sides, hands on the solid dirt walls around him to keep himself steady, to keep himself grounded and still but he knew when a shadow fell over his face that it wasn't because the sun had gone over the clouds, and he looked up. 

Above him, was skin the colour of black gold, deep-set eyes that were so sad, so understanding but yet so warning, so commanding and dominating that he knew the other...Man? Boy? Was not here for a pity trip and he shuffled backwards a little. While he might be in a cage and while a barrier might separate them, he had no trust. Like he had no name, he had nothing else. Just the knowledge that this wasn't right. That he wasn't really meant to be here. He didn't know how or why he felt that way, but he did. He dropped his gaze down, to the dirt between his ankles. 

"Hey. It's okay, alright?".

He wanted to laugh.

No, it wasn't okay.

"My name is Alby. I'm in charge, around here. Can you tell me anything about yourself?".

He thought. He really tried hard. Who was he? What did he know? He thought until tears just gently lapped at the corners of his eyes, until his headache increased to a smarting stab in his mind. He didn't even know what he looked like. After a moment he shook his head slowly, shakily. Alby seemed to understand, because he gave a nod. A sad action that had him wanting to scream. What did  _Alby_ have to be sad about? He had a name. He knew who he was and what he looked like.

He didn't even know his age. If he was sixteen, or if he was thirty. He had no idea. 

"What about your name? Do you know your name?" Alby questioned next, and he wanted to cry. But instead he glanced up to Alby, tried to see if this was some sort of sick joke but all he saw was a careful, guarded sort of hopefulness.

Again, he shook his head uncertainly and dropped his gaze. Alby didn't sigh, but gave a sort of replacing shift of balance and nodded, glancing up and away to something else. Or someone else for a second or two, looking around and licking his lips before he looked back at the caged boy. "That's okay. It'll come back to you, within a day or two. It always does. It's the one thing they let us keep".

Before he could ask questions, Alby spoke again.

"Okay. I'm gonna let you out, alright? No running, no fighting. It's okay. We're all family" Alby  _instructed._ It was not a choice, that he knew. If he fought or if he tried to run, especially since now he knew there was a way out, he'd be back in this cage. Or possibly worse. What sort of family practically hunted it's new piece? Then threw him into a cage?

But, he nodded. Just once. Not obedience, but understanding. Self-preserving compliance. At least for now. 

Alby seemed to hesitate for a few moments longer before nodding, softening a little. "Okay. Okay, good."

The cage door was opened, and Alby offered a hand. For some reason, he thought of it as a sort of offer of peace. A sort of,  _we're together now._ And after staring for a few moments, he reached up, felt a rough meet of skin and was carefully pulled out of the cage, half-crawling, half-hauled up onto the grass again where he stayed on his hands and knees for a moment, his head bowed.

Around them the air seemed to shift. The noise was still there but dimmed a little. As though everyone was paying attention whilst trying to make it look as though they were not. He did not look. Wouldn't meet their gaze and know that he was beneath them. That he was the fresh meat. And though not meeting their gazes was practically the same as submitting, at least he wouldn't have to see that knowledge in their eyes.

Alby let him stay there for a while, watched calculatingly as he took deep and slow breaths, shifted his body minutely. First a slight arch of his spine. Then a light shift on his hands and knees, adjusting his weight. Then a deep, long inhale and exhale. Then a slight change in posture before he shoved himself to his feet, in one flash of movement.

Alby jerked towards him slightly, and he looked on in...Victory? Acknowledgement? Calculation? And Alby instantly knew.

He was testing him. Calculating him. Pulling him apart string by string and he had done since he'd crouched above him in the cage. He was looking at him like he knew something Alby didn't.

Forcing a smile, Alby clapped a hand over his shoulder and squeezed, like a hidden warning. He didn't flinch. Didn't break gaze. "Well, best we show you around, yeah? Take a tour of your new home".

Home was a strong word.

Especially since, considering, he had none.

"Well, Greenie. Where we are now is called The Glade. It's the safe place here. Over there-" Alby pointed to a dilapidated looking wooden shack. It had a stick/straw roof, what appeared to be more than one story, and one one entrance. No windows. "-Is the Homestead. It's where we all sleep. It's...Well. Home, I suppose" Alby murmured on. He looked across it, watched an exhausted looking teenage boy schlepped out of the Homestead, his head low and his body protesting each movement.

He looked dead. Like a zombie, and he wondered exactly how long that boy had been here.

Alby moved him on, their stroll with intent but not hurry. And from that he deduced that he'd be here for a long time, if there was no hurry for him to learn everything in one day. It meant he had time enough tomorrow to learn. And the day after that. And, quite possibly, every day after that, too. The idea did not terrify him so much as pique his interest and his mild irritation, his hunger for knowledge, understanding, for  _answers_ grew insatiable then. 

"The cage that you just came out of, they're called the Slammer, collectively. Or the Pits depending". Depending on what, Alby did not elaborate. But he had some idea.

Alby stopped, and pointed. "See those trees down there? Those are the Deadheads." The name was said with...Distrust. Wariness. Sadness. Alby glanced at him. "For now, don't go there".

He'd been silent, but that only added more fuel to the fire of his need for answers. And so he stopped walking, turned to face Alby, who faced him back like a man who knew what was about to happen. "Why? Why shouldn't I go there?".

His own voice surprised him. Steeled, as though demanding. He had a soft voice, curious and slightly rough. American accent. He supposed that's why he defined his question. Just to hear his voice more. He sounded lilted, his voice giving away that he couldn't be older than twenty. Alby was watching him carefully.

"Just don't. What you might find won't be pretty. And it will only give you more questions. Questions that won't be answered for a long time". It was said as though Alby would prefer they never be answered, but had no choice in the matter. This new world. This new life, it was becoming more confusing by the second and his mind was nothing but an aching blur of questions and pleas and flashing images. Repeats of his time here and sometimes if he focused hard enough he could feel the ground shaking and vibrating beneath him, as though he was still inside the moving cage he'd come up here in. 

He wanted to argue. He wanted to be defiant, wanted to run to the Deadheads. And there was something inside him that perked up like a dog shown a treat. Something that nudged at him, said _you're curious. Do it. New things to see, new scents. It may answer your questions. It might give you more. Do it._

He ignored it, only turned away in a move that was not acceptance but a relent -for now- and both of them knew it. His mind was a constant mess of functioning, organised confusion. Memories- No.  _Knowledge_ of people strolling down grey streets, heads bent to the wind, of bright packets of buttered candies and of the sun scorching down on a stretch of golden sand clashed almost unwillingly with all this new knowledge. The fresh take-in of odd terms that made no sense or connection in his mind like 'Shank' and 'Greenie' and the Homestead, the Deadheads and the huge walls around them that left a gap, an entrance into something even newer.

Greenie wasn't his name, he knew much. But he knew it was  _a_ name. 

They moved on, an endless litany of names and places and terms falling from Alby's mouth that left Thomas clutching desperately at his own knowledge, trying to define or pair the information with something already in his mind but it was as though whatever had been done to his memory had taken a chunk of his words with them. It left him feeling odd, the way Alby talked about them so naturally. As though he ought to know the terms and his name and the boys and young men around them that gawked not so privately. He felt like some sort of new playtoy. An exhibit. Entertainment for them. He had a feeling though, that he as not the first.

The way Alby seemed so practised in this, so calm and natural and at ease made him think. His words spoken as though they'd been spoken a hundred times over all told him yes. He was not, in fact, the first new delivery. But the way that Alby kept looking at him, kept glancing at him said there was something... _Different_ about him. Something that had not come with the other boys. 

There was an inhuman squeal, gurgled and full of agony that tore across the Glade. A few jumped, some ducked a little and others shook their heads. Alby only twitched a little. The sound was followed by a shout of "Bloody hell, you slinthead piece of klunk! I said the  _heart_!" and his stomach lurched slightly. The heart. The sound. Surely that couldn't have just been a- _  
_

His thoughts were cut off by Alby pointing almost embarrassedly, at an ominous looking building further down, tucked away in a sort of pocket-corner. "That, Greenbean, is the Bloodhouse. It's where we kill the livestock for food. Winston is teaching some other Gladers -that's all us lot here- how to kill animals".

Oh, because that made it okay. That is was just some got or cow or sheep in there, dying slowly and in agony from an untrained blade.

He kept his mouth shut. 

Around them, it was getting dimmer. He tipped his gaze to the sky, eyes fixed. The blue looked fabricated. Too bright and jovial for a place, a situation, like this. The sun was only just beginning to set. Alby watched him curiously. Patiently. Then he remembered, gaze sliding to the climbing confines of the cold, stone grey. Dots of thick vines and icy littered that stone as though making an attempt to escape. 

"The walls. What are they? What are they for?".

Hearing his own voice sounded wrong. He knew it was his but it was foreign. Ill-fitting to what he imagined. His lips shaped words he didn't quite feel familiar with yet. Instantly, Alby changed. His posture stiffened and became confrontational, his gaze became steady and holding, warning.

"They're there for a reason, Greenie. You don't go within ten feet of 'em, do you hear me? That's Rule One. You don't leave The Glade. Understood?".

He wanted to challenge him. Wanted to say he'd gotten close. That there was an exit. A  _way out._ Why the hell  _not_ but he knew it would get him into more trouble than it would get him answers, even if the desire to just go to the walls, to pointedly touch was now nearly insatiable. But he just gave a non-committal sound, as though daring Alby to try and display that dominance again.

Alby dropped it. 

They stayed for a while, him constantly turning around, looking anywhere and everywhere and Alby watching him watch. And then the sky dimmed more and the other boys, the other Gladers as his mind helpfully supplied him with, begun to just sort of melt out of different parts of the Glade. Trickling into one space like trails of water leading to a lake and it was then that Alby finally moved. "Come on. Frypan is serving out food, and it's nearly time for the Gathering. It's...A special one, this month".

Alby had hesitated over those last words, and it ate at him more, made him want to scream and tantrum like a sick toddler to get his way, to get his answers. 

Still, he followed Alby until he was pointed to a bench, where he sat and watched.

The Gladers filed towards a large table near what seemed to be an open kitchen shack, and he watched as they arranged and re-arranged themselves into what he realized a moment later, with a sort of sickened anger, was a  _pecking order._

Alby at the front, followed by numerous others. The difference was clear in how they held themselves, their ages and muscle mass and clothing. So much for the past hour or so of equality that Alby had been forcing down his throat. All bollocks like  _Rule 2: Never harm another Glader. It's all about trust. We're a family._ What a load of absolute klunk.

He blinked.

Klunk. He'd used Glader slang without even thinking about it. 

It felt like being defeated to him, and his cheeks burnt with anger. It distracted him from the food line anger long enough that he was only brought out of his thoughts by a wooden bowl of dubious, chunky-looking soup being shoved under his nose. "Eat up, Greenie. Got yours for you today. Don't get used to it. Soon enough you'll be queueing up with the others in your group" Alby informed him, and he understood.

Soon, he'd be thrown into a  _rank._ Group was just the polite term. And somehow, he already knew that he'd be near the back -if not at the very end- of that line. Greenie, he had come to defer from the way it had been toned, was not an affectionate term. It was quite the opposite- It was an insult. And he'd figured it out.

Greenie, Greenbean. They were other words for 'newbie'. 'Baby'. The lowest of the low, the newest. He was completely out of the loop, out of the routine and they were calling him out on it with a label. 

Though, he supposed even an insult was better than being nameless. Faceless. 

He ate without question, and when he was done he let his head fall back and his eyes close.

When it was dark, his heartbeat raced in time to the dramatic, loud, challenging beat of the drums that encircled the 'sand school' as Alby had introduced it. At it's center was a gargantuan fire, towers of tied-together poles decorated with the skulls of goats and cattle. It was a celebration, Alby said. For him. For his arrival. The Gladers danced and cheered and crowded and shouted and he circled them like the uncertain runt of a litter, unsure where he fit in.

He wasn't sure how or when it happened but he was suddenly inside the circle, the Gladers roaring with sickening delight, chanting and shouting "Greenie! Greenie! Greenie!" like cheering for a horse at a race and suddenly he felt like a dog thrown into the pit to fight for his life. Opposite him was a squared off, glowering Glader named Gally.

Their first introduction had been unpleasant at best, damning at worse. And now Gally faced him like a bull about to charge, bouncing between gravity placement and shaking out his shoulders, grinning at him in a rather shark-like way and he felt trapped, tried to back away but the Gladers had formed a wall, sealing him in like the actual walls around them, shoving him forwards and towards Gally and he barely had the time to straighten himself up when he was suddenly being charged at as though by him being thrown in it was an automatic acceptance of the challenge.

Gally hit him like a freight train and he was dragged backwards with the force, whelping in surprise as he hit the hard sound with a bounce, Gally hauling ass off him and rolling his shoulders, shaking it off and beckoning for him to get up. "Come on, Greenie. That the best you got, shuck-face?". 

Anger fuelled him and he rolled to his stomach, threw himself up from a press-up position and twisted to face Gally to the delighted, surprised 'Oooohhh's of the Gladers. Just because he was new, and just because they hadn't told him anything, it did not mean they were above him. A sort of lesser volume had replaced the previous loudness now, those behind him parting slightly as though stepping back or making room and he ran, twisted into Gally and anticipated his move.

He'd noticed, by now, that Gally had a habit of holding his foes against his stomach and relying on pure muscle bulk to simply push them. He didn't actually fight. So neither did he. Instead he gripped and twisted like a provoked snake, tossed Gally into the dirt then turned desperately to get away only Gally kicked his legs from under him and he fell back against something big and solid, as alive as the heart in his chest before there was a flare of white-hot agony in the back of his head and the world seemed to just...

Slow down. 

His breath echoed in his ears like some sort of movie sound effect, the world around him dancing between dark and light, blurred and shadowed. His eyes rolled as he fell, the ground rushing up to catch him and he hit it with a winded exhale, a flash of hanging golden silk in the rear of his vision before it vanished as he bounced lightly, lay there sprawled out and stunned with his heartbeat hammering in his ears like the sound of drums, his breathing slow and unsteady rasps of soft, airy sounds. 

The fire reflected, glowed, lit up the sand in his vision as every ounce of imaginable pain seemed to shoot to the back of his head and then-

_Thomas._

It wasn't his voice. But  _it was his name._

His name. He had a name.

_Thomas._

_Thomas!_

_"Thomas!"_

His eyes snapped into focus and above him, glowing like molten gold was a set of deep cognac eyes above sharp cheekbones, a mess of unruly, half-curly strands of dark metallic gold sweeping across a cute, little forehead and  _he knew him. He knew that voice and he knew those eyes and those hands gripping him and shaking him_  and it was silent around them bar that voice, those terrified, curious, shocked eyes above him that he couldn't look away from, the pain lancing and throbbing through the back of his skull.

"...Tommy...?"

Like the thick, glorious British accent above him Thomas' vision faded out slowly into a dark abyss of pain-free, memory-free nothingness. 


End file.
